In the first quatrain, the speaker talks of disgrace in his fortune and in the eyes of others. He is an outcast, alone and weeping “my outcast state”. He cries out to Heaven of his troubles, but Heaven is deaf to his cries and does nothing. The adjective bootless in “bootless cries” means that his cries are useless and are to no avail. He looks at himself and curses his fate. This quatrain sets the stage of a man alone, depressed, thinking of his life, and finding no hope within him or from heaven.